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Gen. LOYELL H. ROUSSEAE 



'1 ^ 



(OF KENTUCKY,) 



DELIVERED AT THB 



GREAT U.^IOJf MASS MEETmG 



Wilmington, Del., on the 3d of March, 1866, 



("As REPORTED BY Mr. C. H. McKxiGHT, StEXOGRAPHIC REPORTER FOR THB 

"National Intelligencer," and published in that paper, and 

NONE reprinted THEEEFR0M._) 










WASHINGTON, D. C: 

Pbinted at Daily National Intelligencer Office.^ 

1866. 



^ 



^666 



SQ 
tK 



S I* ES JE O H 

OF 

GENEEAL ROUSSEAU. 



General Lovell H. Eousseau was introduced to the 
audience by the President of the meeting amidst long- 
continued applause. He said : 

Fellow-Citizens: A stranger to you, I do not know- 
even who called this meeting, nor have I much idea as to 
the former political opinions of those who compose it ; but 
in looking over the Gazette from this place to-day, which 
was handed to me, I found it announced that a meeting was 
to be held here to-night to endorse the policy of Andrew 
Johnson. [Applause.] And I consider myself at home in 
any meeting that endorses the policy of Andrew Johnson, 
as it is now developed and understood, no matter where the 
meeting may be held nor who may compose it. I meet you 
here to-night, fellow-citizens, with much pleasure, and do not 
inquire to what political party you may have heretofore 
belonged, because we meet now upon common ground to 
endorse that man the policy of whose administration we 
hope will save the Government from destruction. [Ap- 
plause.] 

THE TYRANKY OF PARTY. 

Party trammels are very strong — stronger among the 
American people than anywhere else on the globe. Party 
allegiance, during the war, has shown itself more powerful 
than has true loyalty to the Government. Men follow their 



party leaders, and seldom ask where they are going. It was 
so with the Democratic party before and during the war, and 
in consequence of this it lost the power which it so long held 
and (like all other parties) so much abused. A large por- 
tion of it followed its leaders into the vortex of secession, 
whilst a still larger portion, more in opposition to the Ke- 
publican party than anything else, took ground against much 
that was done in the prosecution of the war. And now 
when the Democratic party seem inclined to take their 
stand with the President, on what they term Constitutional 
ground — and, in fact, the very ground that he and the Re- 
publican' party occupied during the war — we find extreme 
Eepublicans, obeying party trammels and party interests, 
running away from that position, and swearing they never 
held it. [Laughter and applause.] And the reason given 
for this is, that as the Copperheads were in favor of it, they 
must be against it. ["That's so," and applause.] Parties 
well drilled and organized instinctively avoid each other ; 
and to-day men denounce that which they were in favor of 
yesterday. But you meet here to-night to endorse a man 
who, ignoring party lines and party discipline, stands brave- 
ly up for the Constitution of his country. [Applause.] He 
has not counted the cost, but has promptly and fearlessly 
taken the position, and will hold it to the end. [Applause.] 

THE EESULT OF THE CONFLICT. ;i 

Now, fellow-citizens, the war is over, and the action of 
Congress naturally prompts the inquiry, What did we fight 
for, and what did we gain by it ? For what purpose did we 
prosecute the war ? I will answer you in the words in which 
every Union man in the United States would have answered 
you for the last five years : " To save the Union." And yet 
we are told to-day in the Halls of Congress that the Union 
is destroyed ; that although we triumphed in the war, the 
Union is gone. Who tells you this ? Why, the very men 
who for the last four years have done everything they 



wished to do in the name of the Union, and who ran over 
and trampled under foot all opposition in the name of the 
Union. 

And yet they tell us now that the Union which was staked 
on a successful issue of the war is gone. 

Andrew Johnson says, no ! and that it shall never go while 
he lives. [Great applause.] And you people must join him 
in this, and say, the Union never shall be dissolved. [Con- 
tinued applause.] Politicians may tell you the Union is 
dissolved ; but they cannot tell you the day, nor the hour, 
nor by what act it was dissolved. No man can point his 
finger to the time nor the act that dissolved it. And if they 
cannot tell you in what way nor at what time this occurred, 
how can they say it has occurred at all? We staked the 
Union on the result of the war, and won. We suppressed 
the rebellion and put down the force by which they sought 
to maintain and make good their ordmances of secession. 
These ordinances of secession being nullities, as all admit, 
they accomplished nothing in the effort to dissolve the Union. 
The rebels did not dissolve it by force of arms, for we put 
down the force, and so there is no pretext for the statement 
that these States are out of the Union. The poliacians, for 
party purposes only, tell yon that the Union is dissolved. 
But ask the people — the masses — those who paid the money 
to prosecute the war, and those who fought the battles for 
the Union — whether they lost that for which they fought. 
Ask the father who gave up his last son to fight the battles 
of his country ! Ask the son who poured out his blood upon 
the battle-field 1 Ask the widow whose husband lies in a far- 
distant bloody grave, whether we lost what we fought for I 

I wonder that these men do not hide their faces for shame 
when they tell the soldier and the sufferer in this war that 
all this was. done in vain. Andrew Johnson believes that 
as we suppressed the rebellion we saved the Union, and that 
the nation at large, and loyal men especially, have a right to 



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demand of Congress the recognition of this fact, and thereby 
restore to the country peace, harmony and prosperity. But 
for this opinion he is grossly denounced and abused. 

THE ASSAILANTS OF THE PEESIDENT. 

And who are these leading assailants of the President ? 
Who are they ? They are men who care as little for the 
Union as Jefferson Davis — men who for the negro and in 
the name of the negro would see the Government go down 
in a moment. Men who for the sake of party ascendency 
insist that the Union is dissolved, and that eleven States no 
longer belong to it, except as military departments. One of 
them, Wendell Phillips, has repeatedly and exultantly pro- 
claimed that for thirty years past he labored to destroy it. 
And he seems inclined to stop at nothing. It will not be 
forgotten that in one of the most critical periods of the war, 
Mr. Phillips publicly called on the Congress of the United 
States " to push the President from his stool." If he would 
demand this as to the lamented Lincoln, against whom he 
could not have cherished very bitter feelings, what would he 
not ask against President Johnson, whom he so hates ! 

Wm. Lloyd Garrison, in a late speech, alludes to Mr. 
Seward, whose patriotism is above all parties and all things^ 
else, as the fallen Lu-cifer, for continuing to support Mr. 
Lincoln's polic}'-, and says it would have been far better for 
him had the miscreant and assassin Payne succeeded in the 
effort to take his life. And these men claim to be Christian 
men, whose hearts are filled with Christian virtues, especially 
charity. 

Mr. Stevens insists that there are but twenty-six States 
now in the Union ; that the insurrectionary States are no 
longer in it ; that they are but military departments and to 
be governed as such, and doubtless it was on that ground 
that the Freedmen's Bureau bill was deemed constitutional 
and proper as a war measure, to be enforced not in States 



tut in TeWitories. Davis insisted on the right of secession ; 
Sumner, Stevens, and Phillips insist substantially in the 
right of expulsion. The Union may be as effectually dis- 
solved by the one as the other, and one is no less treasonable 
than the other. 

THE LOYALTY OF TENNESSEE VINDICATED, 

Davis would have dissolved the Union by war — by vio- 
lence and bloodshed. The others would do it by the forms 
of law ; by insidiously sapping the foundations of the Gov- 
ernment, and in the name of the Union and the Constitution 
overturn and destroy both. Look at the action of these 
men and see if this is not true. Take the case of Tennessee. 
Long since her relations with the General Government were 
restored ; she filled all the State offices the rebels had aban- 
doned ; she called a convention, remodeled her constitution, 
abolished slavery, as she was advised to do by the adminis- 
tration. She elected her Governor and Legislature under 
that Constitution, and afterwards she adopted the amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery. 
She elected men to represent her in both Houses of Congress. 
She has paid all the taxes demanded of her by the General 
Government. All this has been voluntarily done by her 
loyal people. Every one of her United States Senators and 
Representatives are loyal and can take the " test oath." They 
have been legally elected, and by a loyal constituency. And 
yet the majority in Congress, under the lead of Messrs. Sum- 
ner and Stevens, utterly refuse to recognize Tennessee as a 
member of the Union. She may bear burdens and pay taxes 
imposed upon her by the Government ; she may furnish 
soldiers to fight the battles of the nation ; she gives us even 
a President of the United States ; and yet as a State they 
insist she is out of the TJ nion— dead— a. Territory, a 
mere military department, and to be governed by Congress 
as such. She must be taxed, but not represented. Her po- 



J> 



8 

sition is far worse than that of a Territory, for Territories 
may be heard in Congress. Their delegates may sit and' 
debate in Congress, though they cannot vote. But Tennessefe'^ 
is excluded entirely from your legislative halls. True, seats'' 
upon its floors are grudgingly given her members as silent' 
spectators and a matter of courtesy, while , Congress con- 
siders whether she is in or out of the Union. Three long 
months have passed away, and the Committee of Fifteen, 
have, after intense labor, decided that her representatives 
and those of the rest of the insurrectionary States shall not 
be admitted until Congress shall say so. And yet by thq 
Constitution each House of Congress, and not a joint Com- 
mittee of Fifteen, composed of members of both Houses, is 
to judge of the qualifications of its own members, to admit 
or reject them, as they may decide. This is a practical recog- 
nition of secession. It is an acknowledgment, in fact, of the 
success of the rebellion and the dissolution of the Uuion ; 
or it is an expulsion of Tennessee, as a punishment for the 
treason of a portion of her citizens. 

Now, gentlemen, all this is without law, and against right. 
It is against the organic- law of the land, and cruelly unjust '^^ 
to Tennessee. I know the people of that State. I know 
them well, I have lived among her people for more than ^ 
two years, during the desolation and suffering brought upon ; 
them by this war. I knew them under circumstances which '; 
elicited their true traits of character. I saw among theni^ 
old.men, women and children,- who had never known a want, • 
turned. out of house and home, stripped of their property, 
and left utterly destitutCy and yet I seldom heard a murmur. . 
T|iey, accepted it albas incident to the war,' and were braye 
ei^pugh to sufter;and;be still. •'The^'^'a'i'e' a brdve/ generous, "' 
and.chiyalrio people, and any pledg^'they^ 'ever make is ! 
worthy of iuiplicit trust and confidence, aiid' they have in 
-every form pledged adhesion to the GrOfVeriiiiient;,;, . 



I 



THE PATKIOTISM AND LOYALTY OF THE PRESIDENT COM- 
MENDED. , 

Yet this is tlie treatment tliey receive at the hands of these 
men. And these are the men who have made war upon Andy 
Johnson. These are thecci^j/af/isof the Northern secessionists 
or expulsionists — those who would destroy the Union foi*' 
party purposes. Mr. Sumner, in the United States Senate, 
charged President Johnson with " whitewashing " traitors, 
Mr. Stevens, iji the House, charged him with havirig' com-" 
mitted enough usurpations to have caused the loss of tb6 head ' 
of any English monarch within the last two hundred years.; 
They are at the head of those who denounce Andrew Johnson ' 
as a traitor ! Aye ! a tra,itor ! Andrew Johnson of Tennessee," 
& traitor I Who 25 Andrew, Johnson ? I'll tell you. He is' 
2i man — every inch a man! [Immense applause.] And he ■ 
who intimates that an uupatriotic sentiment or thought ever 
had place in his heart is unworthy the liberty he enjoys, and ' 
for which Andrew Johnson has so long struggled and is strug- 
gling for still. [Long and continued applause.] Those who 
charge him with treason know little of what true loyalty is. 
And they know nothing of what Southern loyalty^ cost a 
Southern man. His love of country prompted Andrew'-. 
Johnson to turn his back upon his home, his property and ^ 
his friends, whilst those who denounce him as a traitor risked 
nothing, suffered nothing, lost nothing. And after all he has 
done and endured for his country, a pet party scheme, (the 
Freedman's Bureau bill,) unconstitutional, outrageous, and 
oppressive in all its features, was presented to him for his 
approval, which his conscience, his judgment, and his of&cial 
oath required him to di,sapprove, and for such disapproval he ^ 
is denounced as a traitor. It was but an effort to apply the ''■ 
party la^h; but he would not submit to it. This is cleal-, 
when we recollect that the agents of the Freedman's Bureau [ 
under a law ofCongressmujahlike: the bill vetoed, and which '^ 
will not e^^p.ire.for a,.yea;r, swarm t.throug.b every Southerh 
Sta1;e to oppress and harass the people, and to incite a war'-' 
between the whiteand black races., /If- the lEreedman^SiBu^ > 
reau is needed in the Southern States we have .it .there . 
a-lready, and; must have if for a year to borne, without any 
new enactment. But because he would not caress this party 
pet needlessly thrust upon-.him, he must be accused of treason, ^ 
and scurrilpu^ly abused land deno,unoed ,all-oVer the kndV^' 
And these men thus wantonly threw down the gauntlet to 



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10 

the President. They deliberately attempted" to rule him, to 
control him, or to break with him. They essayed to drive 
him, but they utterly mistook their man. [Applause.] 

THE SUICIDAL POLICY OF THE RADICALS. 

My opinion is, that many of those who so bitterly de- ' 
nounce the President on account of his veto of the " Bureau 
bill " are prompted by partisan feelings merely. I aai sure 
they do not understand or appreciate the odious features of 
the bill itself. Indeed, I doubt whether one in an hundred 
has carefully read it ; and because the " Copperheads" ap- 
prove the veto, they think, of course, they should not. And 
Union men are constantly asked if they will go with the 
" Copperheads ?" and they are a good deal horrified at the 
very thought. So it was in Kentucky at the beginning of 
the war. The pro-slavery feeling there then was fierce and 
proscriptive. That' institution has since gone down, thank 
God, never to rise again. [Applause.] And we Union men 
were asked by the secessionists if we would join the aboli- 
tionists in what they called the subjugation of the South, 
(just about as hard a question as any man could answer in 
the affirmative, and say his life was his own,) but there 
were those who did answer, and we said, " Yes ; if the devil 
himself will help us in this struggle, let him come, and we 
will take what help he can give." [Laughter and applause.] 
And now, to-day, when some of us say that this Freedmen's 
Bureau bill is unconstitutional, oppressive, and ought not 
to be passed, men tell us we are traitors, and ask us if we 
are going with the Democrats, the Copperheads, and the 
rebels. We say, no! we are going nowhere; and we tell 
those gentlemen to mind that they do not abandon their po- 
sition because the Democrats happen to agree with them. 

Andrew Johnson now occupies the position he has occu- 
pied throughout this long war, and if these men come to 
him is it right that we should leave him ? 

Indeed, I wish every man in the United States was in fa- 
vor of his policy, and we should soon have 'Such peace 
and quiet and prosperity as we have never seen before. 

DISCUSSION OF THE FREEDMEN's BUREAU BILL — ITS UNCON- ' 

STITUTIONALITY. 

As a great deal is said about this Freedmen's Bureau 
bill, I wish to call your attention to it for a few moments • 



for I do not think that one man in an hundred, who cor- 
rectly understands it and appreciates the action of the 
agents under it, would favor its passage. The bill is con- 
fessedly unconstitutional, admitted and intended to be so. 

It confers powers Congress has no right to give to any 
tribunal, much less to mere private individuals. It sweeps 
away and requires the agents to disregard the laws and con- 
stitutions of every State where it is put in force ; and any 
individual or oilicial who denies to a negro, on account of his 
color, any civil right possessed by the whites, is to be taken 
up by the agents of this Bureau, and fined or imprisoned, 
or both, in a sum not exceeding $1,000, and imprisonment 
not exceeding one year. And it gives power to these agents 
to try and determine all matters relating to the colored pop- 
ulation, and places the army of the United States as a 2^osse 
at their backs to enforce their judgments, 

A negro who claims a debt of fifty dollars of a white man 
goes to the agent of this Bureau, makes complaint, and the 
agent tries and decides the claim as a court. Now, the ju- 
dicial power of the United States, by the Federal Constitu- 
tion, " shall be vested in the Supreme Court, and in such 
inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain 
and establish." And the Constitution declares that " The 
judges of both the Supreme and inferior courts shall hold 
their offices during good behavior." And yet here judicial 
powers that Congress cannot confer even upon judges or 
courts are conferred upon irresponsible individuals — agents 
of this Bureau. In this the violation of the Constitution is 
so palpable, so flagrant, and so barefaced that no one can 
fail to see it, for these agents are empowered to hear and de- 
termine all matters pertaining to the colored population. 

Matters of indebtedness, and all matters of tort done or 
supposed to be done to the negroes, such as assaults and 
batteries, slander, libel, &c., &c., may be so tried, and with- 
out a jury. 

It is also declared by the Federal Constitution that " the 
trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be 
by jury," and "that no person shall be deprived of life, lib- 
erty or property, without due process of law ; and that in all 
criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a 
speedy and public trial by an impartial jury ;" and that " in 
suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be 
preserved." 



m^t^ 



t 

\ . . ■ :'''' y: ^,' ■ ■ 

Nowj all these provisions are openly, and brazenly vio- 
lated and held for naught hy this bill; and no man can 
stand up before the people and deny the fa,ct, for it cannot 
be disputed. And yet the President is denounced and tra- 
duced all over the country, because he would not violate his 
oath by approving this bill. 

IT PLACES THE MILITAEY SUPERIOK TO THE CIVIL POWER IN 
TIME OF PEACE — IX FACT, OVERRIDES ALL LAVi^. 

And why complain of the President for not violating his 
oath ? By the laws of the Southern States negroes may not be 
witnesses in certain cases, (which is wrong, in my judgment, 
but nevertheless it isthe law,) but the right to be a witness 
is a civil right, and this ^ill, confers that right upon the ne- 
gro, and req^uires the agent of the Bureau to enfoi:e it. And 
fc-o the judge of a court, sworn to administer the laws of his 
State, who refuses to allow a negro to swear, in violation of 
the law, is to be arrested by this agent, and punished by fine 
and imprisonment. He may be taken off the bench in the pro- 
gress of a trial,' and'leaving'the jurors and suitprs to take care 
of themselves, may be marched off with bayonets at his back — 
in the hands of negro soldiers, too — and tried and fined and 
imprisoned by the agent of this Bureau, who has, perhaps, 
scarcely sense enough, to get out of the rain. [Laughter.] 
And that' would be a nice .spectacle for any respectable and 
law-abiding community to witness 1 

What respect would the, community have for the judges 
and their authority when treated with this sort of indignity ! 
And the Governor of a. State, and every official, in fact, 
may be treated in the same way, so that it) in the opinion of 
any of these petty tyrants^, the^e agents of the Bureau, the 
Governor of a State has violated the law , of the i'reedmen's 
Bureau so as to deserve irnprisonraent for a year, he may so 
order ,it, arid ^ thus deprive, the .State of itS; Exe<?utive. In 
faci," the' State might lose all its officials in the same way,, 
and then, according to the: theory, of the Suinner and Ste- 
veiis school, such. States \xouid bQ[j.9ut;Of the Union if not 
•so 'betore. Now,'! ask of you,.. as free men, and as ±air men, 
who. of yoti would, fay or the passage pf ^o iniamoys a, l^iw as 
thi^ ? — a law which authorizes and, requires such outrages as 
I have, named to be coni^nitfed. A few day^.ago, in the city 
of Louisville; I?!y.', some policemen were taken up and fi^ed, 
and inipriboued, so the paper^s say, having arrested some 



13 

negroes under the orders of the city court, and one of those 
officers was amongst the very first soldiers in Kentucky who 
joined the United States army in tHe suppression of the 
rebellion. Such is the practical operation of the law as it 
now stands ; what it would be under this new bill Heaven 
only knows ! . ' 

And when an arrest is made hj the agent of the Bureau, 
no power on earth can order a release, except the President 
of the United States, and howeVer outrageous the arrest 
may be, the army stands at the agent's back to protect hirn 
and to enforce it. The courts, national and State; are pow- 
erless to interfere, anc] from the decision of the agent, no 
matter how much may be involved, j^r what he .may decide 
as to the property or the liberty of the white people, an 
appeal lies nowhere, by the provisions of this bill. And 
though a court may try and determine a cause between a 
negro and a white person, the agent of , the Bureau may re- 
try, re-decide the case, ^nd enforce his decision in defiance 
ot the court, for the arniy is ever at his beck and call. So 
the Bureau has original and appellate jurisdiction of all 
matters and things, decided and undecided, in which a negro 
has an interest, A difficulty may occur between a negro 
and any member of your family, and the agent may fine and 
imprison if he will, and there is no remedy ; and in the ex-, 
ercise of this unlimited jurisdiction, the discretion, the will 
of the agent, furnishes the law in every case, for there are 
no rules laid down foi* his guidance. With far more than' 
sovereign power he is left to act as he pleases. . And now, 
who dares stand up before the people and denounce Andrew 
Johnson as a traitor, for refusing to approve this infamous,, 
and accursed bill? Who would, so degrade himself as tpk) 
take upon him this infapiy ?. In my humble juclgment, if^ 
the President had, not. vetoed this bill, he would have der, 
served the execrations of a,ll honest and liberty -loving 
people. And we may well fear for the liberties of the 
people when such a law as this can find approval in any of. 
the departments of the Government. 

.1 only wish. that those whoso, fiercely assail the opponents 
ot this bill were sent down to the Southern State to enforce 
it; in that case I would withdraw all opposition and leave' 
them and their precious Bureau to take care of themselves. 
And apart from the fact that this bill is unconstitutional in 
its provisions and oppressive in its- operations, it would 
tji^ing ruin, to it)ja,t r,acQ.in, whose namaand for whose benefit 

[.MHijjilqqAj'.ooJ oci >i.riidJ I hiin .baoi-guoO ni Goiov ii tvj^d o* 




-"^r^ 



14 

all these outrages would be committed. It would naturally 
and inevitably induce a war between the white and black 
races, for no community of Americans anywhere would sub- 
mit^ to such outrages and oppressions as I have named, and 
it would be a shame and a disgrace to that Government for 
which we have done and suffered so much; in fact, a 
Government that does not and will not protect those who 
give allegiance to it is not fit to live under, and ought to be 
destroyed, and go down at once. [Applause.] 

ITS COST INCALCULABLE. 

So far I have not alluded to the cost of administering this 
law. The President said in his veto message, that under 
the old law the Bureau had cost the Government over 
$11,000,000 per year. In addition to the expenditures al- 
lowed in that bill, the bill vetoed authorizes the agents to 
purchase farms, to build houses, hamlets, and towns, to 
build school-houses for the negroes, to furnish them with 
teachers, to supply them with provisions, with medicines, 
and with doctors, all at the expense of the people already 
so burdened with taxes. One hundred, two hundred mil- 
lions of dollars might be so expended, as there is no limit 
save what the agents of the Bureau may deem necessary and 
proper. And so the negro was to be set free because he was 
a man, and to be taken care of, fed and clothed, because he 
is no man. [Laughter.] 

Now, our country is filled with maimed, disabled and 
scarred veterans, who suppressed this rebellion, and with 
the helpless widows and orphans of those who fell in the 
effort. Helpless and destitute soldiers with one leg hobble 
and crawl over the country picking up a precarious subsist- 
ence, and yet those Pharisees who would expend untold 
millions to take care of the black race never cast a thought 
upon those living braves, or the helpless widows and or- 
phans the dead ones have left behind them, [Great Sensa- 
tion.] 

So much for this Freedmen's Bureau bill. From my 
heart I thank Andrew Johnson, as my people do, for stand- 
ing between us and the mischief this bill would bring upon us. 

THE POLICY OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON IDENTICAL WITH THAT 
OF THE LAMENTED LINCOLN. 

Andrew Johnson contends that the Southern people ought 
to have a voice in Congress, and I think so too. [Applause.] 



15 

He is of the opinion that every loyal man, legally elected in 
the insurreotiouary State, should be at once admitted on the 
floors of Congress, During the war that was the theory of 
Mr, Lincoln, and now that the war is over his successor 
should not abandon it. 

In his Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862, 
which is framed and held sacred all over the country, Mr. 
Lincoln said : 

"The Executive will, on the first day of January, 1863, 
designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which 
the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion 
against the United States; and the fact that any State, or 
the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith repre- 
sented in the Congress of the United States, by members 
ohosen thereto at elections wherein the majority of qualified 
voters of such States shall have participated, shall, in the 
absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed con- 
clusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are 
not in rebellion against the United Siates." 

Now, this is the language of Mr. Lincoln, and who will say 
that he considered the rebel States out of the Union ? He 
speaks of them as States in the Union, but as States in re- 
bellion, and he says that their having Eepresentatives in 
Congress, elected by a majority of the people, shall be con- 
clusive evidence not that the States are in the Union, not 
that they have the right to be admitted into the Union, 
but that they are no longer in rebellion against the Govern- 
ment. 

And so with Representatives thus elected, it being con- 
clusive evidence that the rebellion was at an end in such 
a State, in Mr, Lincoln's opinion, all the relations between 
the United States and that State would have been restored. 
Mr. Lincoln never alluded to those States as either dead or out 
of the Union, but as States in the Union, and alive. That was 
the Lincoln-Johnson policy. It is to-day the policy of An- 
drew Johnson. That was also the policy of the Sumner- 
Stevens school at the time that proclamation was published, 
and long after all the ordinances of secession were adopted 
and the war had lasted a year and a half. If those States 
were in the Uhion then and alive, what have they done 
since, and what has anybody done since, or what has oc- 
cuired to kill them or to take them out of the Union ? I 
will tell you the whole thing in a word : those States 




J-^ 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



013 785 679 7 



16 



must be held as dead or out of the Union that political 
power and the offices of the country maybe in the hands of 
the leaders of the Republican party. That is the secret of 
this whole effort to dissolve the Union and to overturn the 
Govern ment. These men have abandoned the Lincoln- John- 
son policy, and now abuse the President because he does not 
do the same thing. • 

APPEAL m FAVOR OF THIS POLICY. 

My countrymen, I do not speak to you to-night as a par- 
tisan. It is true that I have given the Republican party a 
hearty support during the prosecution of the war. I went 
it blind and asked no questions, aad looked with suspicion 
upon any man who talked of constitutional rights. The 
Republican party, having saved the Government, had a 
glorious future before it ; but the war being gloriously and 
triumphantly ended, the leaders of that party turn to destroy 
what that party said our armies had saved. I do not come 
here to abuse the Republican party or any party. Though no 
Republican, I have never been, nor am not now, a Democrat, 
and the Democratic party must greatly change before I can 
be one,- I claim to be an humble supporter of the policy of 
Andrew Johnsoi^ ; and I stand side by side with all who in 
good faith support that policy, as I believe that the only hope 
for the country is in the success of that man and his policy. I 
ask you to give him a generous and manly support. Be 
true to him as he has been, and will be true to the cause of 
the country. You will find him firm and immovable in the 
right, and my word for it he will never be coaxed or driven 
from the course he has marked out, whatever may happen. 
[Applause.] I have an abiding confidence in the people, who 
are now involved in a political revolution, and trust to their 
patriotism and integrity to carry them safely through, for 
they have as a leader that tried and true man, Andeew 
Johnson. [Applause.] 




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